Chatter

No Bun Intended
"Buns? I thought this was a book about sons!" reads the quote from Bruce Jenner on the 1984 celebrity Buns Calendar. And he wasn't kidding. When photographer Christie Jenkins showed up at Jenner's house to immortalize his backside, Jenner's son, Burton (by first wife Chrystie), was all dressed up in his Sunday best. "I'm sorry, it looks like you aren't going to be in it," Dad told Burton, now 5, explaining the semantic error. The photographer tried to remedy the situation. After her camera had its fill of Bruce's bikini-clad behind, she snapped some face-forward family portraits of Jenner, current wife Linda Thompson and, of course, that son of a bun himself, young Burton.

Parking Problems
All Daniel J. (Hill Street Blues) Travanti wanted was a parking space with his name on it so he could whip into the studio and find a guaranteed place for his car. But when his wish was granted, the name painters overdid it. They gave Travanti a sign so much fancier than everybody else's that it aroused the interest of his fellow cast members. Soon the sign began disappearing and showing up in places like the men's room. Travanti thought he had solved the problem by asking for the sign to be bolted to the cement slab in front of his space. Then Hill Street co-star Veronica Hamel came in one day at 5:30 a.m., persuaded a crew worker to unbolt the entire slab and move it to her dressing room. In its place, she tried to find a cheap tombstone but settled instead for a waist-high cement block used for crushing rubbish. Travanti laughed until he cried when he drove in later that day. Since then the slab has been dubbed "Daniel's monument." And they even stenciled his name on it.

Jailhouse Rocker
When his 1982 divorce became final, Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees signed an agreement that would keep him from talking to the press about his wife, children or marriage. Then last May the Scottish edition of the Daily Express included some rather controversial quotes from Robin. He said his wife had had an affair with a New York lawyer while they were still married and claimed to have paid at least $1.5 million to her in a divorce settlement. When this breach of trust was discovered, Robin's ex-wife, Molly, took out a summons against him. At a private hearing, the judge found Robin in contempt of court and sentenced him to 14 days in prison. Molly felt so bad about the unexpectedly harsh sentence that she actually supported his appeal, which took place three hours later. In the end Robin got off with a $7,500 fine, some $15,000 in legal fees and an expensive lesson about putting his mouth where his money is.

You Never Nose
Falcon Crest's snarling tigress Ana Alicia wasn't willing to sacrifice her unique proboscis for the sake of her career. On one of her first jobs, she remembers the producer told her to fix the bump on her nose left over from a childhood collision with her sister. "You know," said Ana, "there are a lot of little girls in Hollywood with perfect noses and if you wanted one you could have hired one." The battle's winner: Alicia, by a nose. She says she and her bump have worked steadily from that day on.

Furthermore

•Gary Busey, who will play the late Alabama football coach Bear Bryant in an upcoming big-screen biography, got a bit of advice from Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry. "It's not really going to be that hard," said Tom. "It's all in how you wear your hat."

•Speaking to the Economic Club of Detroit, Dan Rather remembered his illustrious career as a football hero for Sam Houston State University. It lasted only one day. After a disastrous first day of practice, the coach told him he was cut, saying, "You're little and dammit, boy, you're yellow."

More From This Article

Upcoming in People

'Yankees are ambitious; Southerners are not' Folk twaddle? No, say two Alabama historians, who believe the Mason-Dixon Line divides more than the landscape

Two years after Natalie Wood's death, her sister remembers In a forthcoming book, Lana Wood talks frankly about Natalie and her men, her drinking and her last film, Brainstorm